Human
by Jenivi7
Summary: You see, that is my problem. Until a few days ago, I thought I was human.


A/N: Well, I set out determined to write sci-fi and the result... a rather strange little story. Hope you like XD

* * *

It was like a bad noir, the thought crossed both of their minds. Seto looked around his office briefly and wondered when Venetian blinds and a slow moving ceiling fan had ever been a good idea. He supposed that's what he got for inattention to anything not work related, a washed out room with the broken shadows of slanted blinds cast across it from the early dusk streetlights. He checked the young man standing nervously on the other side of his desk to make sure the scene hadn't switched to black and white.

Yep, they still had color. Plenty of color.

"Widget," he barked the name and the small metal paper weight on his desk extended a graceful antennae. "Evening lights, please."

It beeped twice and soft florescent tubes that lined the walls filled with light, the blinds snapped closed, and the bad movie setting was dispelled, the room returning to it's familiar bleached white perfection.

Seto placed a hand palm down on the desk and the paper weight unfolded in a series of metallic clicks.

The scientist raised an eyebrow at the intruder on his time.

The man in front of his desk shifted and stood straighter, placing the hand that had been nervously rubbing his arm at his side. "My name is Yugi Mutou and I need your help."

The former paper weight finished its 'stretch' and scurried toward Seto's hand, continuing to shift as it moved. Metal plates adjusted to smoothly cover and protect its delicate inner workings leaving four legs that tapped along the wood surface and a body over which a small orb the size of a marble detached itself to hover and bob just over the surface.

"You'll have to go elsewhere then," the chill in the scientist voice making it very clear the the interruption of his work was not appreciated. The tiny creature curled up in the palm of Seto's hand, its legs disappearing back into its body but the orb remaining, and gave off a series of rapid clicks that ran together, a content sound as he ran a thumb along its outer edge. "I have no interest in the problems of human."

Yugi didn't seem put off by the dismissal at all, instead, he smiled and his gaze shifted to the small robot and he put his own hand down on the desk. He tilted his head to the side, and clicked.

Seto froze. As far as he could tell, the man made the noise entirely with mouth and tongue but the click was sharp and clear. Sharper than a human tongue should be able to make.

The creature perked up excitedly, gathering its legs underneath it again and hopped down from the scientist's hand, running across the desk to Yugi's where it bounced happily and chirped. The young man laughed and deposited it back on the desk after scratching his fingers along its metal surface, something the creature seemed to enjoy based on the noises he made.

"I know," the young man said, addressing Seto again. "You see, that's my problem. Until a few days ago, I though I was human."

Seto sat back in his chair, seemingly unimpressed by the display. "What makes you think you're not?"

"I found my control panel." Yugi unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt sleeve and rolled it up, exposing his arm to the elbow. He then placed his thumb and forefinger at the front and back of his wrist, curled his middle finger to set against the side and pressed down at all three points. A small line of light spread across the sin at the underside of his forearm and the young man winced as the skin parted and began to withdraw. His hand fisted against the sting until the skin fully retreated to expose a metal panel, then relaxed again and Yugi let out the breath he had been holding, reaching over with his other hand to press the right front corner of the door. It sprang open, revealing a small circuitry board complete with toggles, switches, and hundreds of tiny wires pulsing like blood vessels.

Seto leaned forward, something that Yugi interpreted as interest flashing in his eyes. He examined the panel for a long moment before looking up again.

"And you came to me because?"

"Because you're the best robotics engineer there is. I was hoping you might be able to find out who built me, and maybe even for what purpose."

The scientist hesitated further and, for a moment, Yugi thought he was going to refuse.

"I'll need two weeks to look into it," he finally said, voice quiet. "If you think you can stand not knowing for that much longer."

The young man practically beamed and gave a formal bow of gratitude. "Of course! Thank you."

* * *

Yugi approached the building just as nervously as he had the first time. Two weeks hadn't made the situation any easier, and it certainly hadn't made Seto Kaiba or his monstrosity of a laboratory any more approachable.

He didn't need to fast talk the guard out front this time, didn't need to exaggerate the urgency of meeting with the country's most brilliant researcher, and as bad as he felt about it, the man barely acknowledged him, nodding him inside and leading him down the stark white halls to Seto's office. The door opened as they approached and Yugi entered the room, jittery with nerves.

The scientist may as well not have moved for two weeks as he sat in nearly the exact same position, eyes trained on text projected into the air above his desk by his small robotic companion. He looked up at the sound of the door and quickly dismissed the text with a wave of his hand.

As before, he waited for Yugi to speak first.

"So were you able to find anything?" The young man approached the Seto's desk, wishing desperately that he knew the scientist well enough to get a read on him.

Seto crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I'm sorry, Mr. Mutou. I did not."

Yugi's face fell. "Do you need anymore time? I'm sure I can be an extra set of eyes or hands if there's information to sift through..."

"I'm afraid there's nothing to sift through," Seto cut him off. "Whoever made you and then, cut you loose for lack of a better term, hid his tracks well. Even if I did have more time, I'm afraid there's little more I could do."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." He tapped the desk twice and the creature, Widget, began projecting the scrolling text once again where it had left off. "Now if you'll excuse me."

Seto turned back to read but the young man stood where he was, arms wrapped around himself and eyes trained downward.

"Was there something else, Mr. Mutou?" The researcher's tone held irritation, unused to not being obeyed immediately.

Yugi raised his eyes finally, dejection evident in their large, off color depths. "If you don't mind me asking, sir, what now?"

Seto took a breath and just when Yugi thought the man would snap at him, tell him to stop being ridiculous and get out of his office, his edges softened.

"Whatever you want. Congratulations, Yugi. You have flesh, blood, a full range of emotions and the ability to choose your own destiny. You're as human as human gets and if I were to venture a guess, I'd say that's exactly what your creator intended."

Yugi met the researcher's eyes and looked into them for a long moment, searching for something before accepting the man's words with a small smile, thanking him again, and leaving.

* * *

A month later, Yugi returned, barreling through the doors, past the security desk and down the hall, guard calling after him but taken too far by surprise to be effectual in forcing the young man to stop.

"You lied to me!" he shouted as the doors opened, once again revealing the researcher at his desk, bent over an old fashioned notebook and scribbling formulas and designs recognizable only to him. He looked up sharply at his unexpected guest as the guard finally got a hold of Yugi's shoulder, fingers tightening to a degree that must have been painful as the young man tried to wretch himself out of the grasp.

"It's alright. Leave him here."

The guard looked up in surprise, still trying to contain a struggling Yugi. "Are you..."

"I said, leave him here." The statement was quiet but it was a command none the less and the glare the man received made him take a step back from the sheer force of it. He released the young man and, even though he looked as though he'd still like to protest the researcher's wisdom, reluctantly returned to his station at the front.

Yugi glared at the his retreating back, then turned on Seto again, coming forward to slap both hands flat on the man's desk.

"Every electronic device with more than a single basic function is required to have the signature of its creator embedded in the circuitry. You didn't even look for mine, I had to find it myself! Now will you, or won't you help me find out who's it is. Or should I compare it against Widget's there and see if it doesn't match."

Seto stared at him, eyes narrowed for a length of time before speaking.

"There's no need. If you were to compare them, they would be identical." His tone turned mocking. "Perhaps I should say congratulations again Yugi, on finding your way home again so easily. However did you figure it out?"

Yugi took a step back as if stung, his arms crossing themselves protectively in front of him. "Lucky guess," he said after a moment. "Why didn't you tell me the first time? Why lie to me?"

"All part of the experiment. Would you like to hear about it?" Seto offered coldly and Yugi nodded, folding in on himself further. "It started the way most endeavors do, to see if we could. In this case to see if we could make an android so lifelike that it could live among humans, as a human, and no one would know the difference. I had financial backing, I had colleagues, I had an entire team of researchers at my disposal but I handled too much of your design and creation myself and when my colleagues recognized you for what you were, a true masterpiece, they tried to pull the plug on the project. They wanted to keep you and study you. Take you apart and reconstruct you. You were my glory and my masterpiece and they wanted it for their own before the _real_ experiment had a chance to even begin. You were meant to be released into the world and observed, not spirited away in the middle of the night never to be heard from again. There, now that you know what you are, does that make you feel any better?"

"Did I even have a name before..."

"No. It was given to you with your final programing. Your memory until that point was erased, you were given a name and some basic knowledge, and then you were hustled out of the lab in the middle of the night. I didn't even take you myself. My brother did. The last report I received was that you were disoriented, but functioning well enough to get yourself a cab."

Seto paused and sat back, watching Yugi's reaction closely. "I didn't even recognize you when you first entered my office. It game me quite a shock when you introduced yourself."

The young man bit his lip, turning several things over in his mind. "Yugi..." he mused, "game. And Mutou?"

"The family name of my first benefactor."

"Fitting. So that's it? It was all just a game to you? You couldn't claim the glory for your own experiment so you made sure no one else could?"

Seto nodded and Yugi breathed out, emptying his lungs completely before letting his hands fall back to his side and straightening his shoulders again.

"Thank you then," he said quietly.

"For what?"

"The truth. No matter how much hearing it hurt." He offered a small smile, and left.

* * *

As much as it had surprised him to find his creation standing in his office nearly two months earlier, it surprised the man even more to open the door to his home so late at night and during a very nasty storm to find the young man on his doorstep.

"I think, that you are a very good liar," he accused, hands on his hips and drenched to the bone. "That still wasn't the whole truth was it?"

Seto stared at him rather wide eyed and Yugi took the silence as in invitation to continue.

"You know what I think? I think it wasn't that you wanted the glory and recognition for yourself. Or that you simply wanted the experiment to continue even without your precious observation. I think you couldn't stand the thought of them taking me apart."

He paused to laugh at the shocked expression on Seto's face, the most emotion he'd seen the man display thus far.

"You created something that was alive and couldn't stand the thought that they might kill it in an effort to reproduce it. _And_ I think you were intentionally hurtful and sent me away again because the thought still scares you. By your own admission, you care more about your machines than about anything that's not."

Yugi laughed again, a warm smile spreading over his face. Something in the man's eyes had softened as they had during their second meeting and it made... well, it made whatever he had in place of a heart jump and his insides tingle.

"I'll take that as a 'Yes, Yugi, you're entirely right, I realize now that it was pointless trying to delude you.' Now are you going to invite me in or not? It's raining out here in case you hadn't noticed."

Seto considered him for a moment more, then snorted and stepped aside. "I always knew I made you too smart for your own good."

"You mean too smart for _your_ own good."

"Perhaps that too." He met Yugi's eyes and his own lips curved upward, just a small echo of Yugi's own smile, but just as warm. "I'll get you a towel."

Before he left the entry hall, however, Seto reached out to touch his creation, gently tucking a bit of sopping wet hair behind Yugi's ear.

"Welcome back."


End file.
